Ah yes Phytic Acid. Interesting stuff isn't it? There are pros and cons to it. Obviously no-one wants all their minerals locked up and even pulled out of their bones and teeth. Major issue there. However ...
Some of the minerals it locks up are linked to certain health issues in excess ... for instance, excess iron in the wrong form acts as a free radical, oxidising cells ... literally rust in your body ... which is a major cause of aging. They say that is why men live average 5 years less, they don't lose blood (iron) women do ... apparently if men are blood donors their longevity goes up.
Additionally, in some cases calcification in tissues (joints, organs) is a problem too ... again, only if it is in the wrong form for the body to use best.
These forms are the ones phytic acid locks up most of. But, they're the easy forms to get in your diet too.
Additionally, as it is a potent antioxidant, phytic acid helps protect cells from most forms of damage, toxins, UV, etc ... and helps prevent cancer, because cancer is ultimately the result of a cell who was damaged and not fixed.
So it is not all bad ... just very bad in the wrong circumstances. In the right circumstances, phytic acid could be very good for you. But if you don't have plenty of the right forms of minerals in your diet it will starve you. This is exactly what it does to most people ... and as such, until better dietary uses for it are available, avoiding it is the right idea most of the time!
How and when phytic acid can actually do you good is something I am still working on, but it clearly could.
Sourdough is really easy. Get a bowl, about a cup of wholemeal flour, a Tbsp sugar, and enough warm water to mix it to a sloppy batter. Whip it vigorously all around your kitchen (no don't splash it around the walls, I mean stir air into it in different areas of your house to expose it to bacteria).
If you like, you can instead add a spoon of bread yeast and one of yoghurt. I've done both methods ... they both seemed to work the same.
Cover your bowl with glad wrap and leave it in a warm place in your kitchen. Every day, take out 1/2 cup of batter (you can add this to ordinary bread recipe now, but it won't be vigorous enough to rise it all by itself), and replace with fresh wholemeal and water.
After about a week you should be good to go. The following is based on my bread recipe which is 380ml water, 200g wholemeal flour, 400g high grade flour, 2 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp milk powder, 1 Tbsp oil. Before bed, take out a cup of batter. Place it in a bowl (or your bread maker pan), with all the water at body temp, oil, and wholemeal flour. It should look porridgy.
If you're doing it in your bread maker, just chuck all that in and start the dough cycle.
If you're doing it by hand, mix it all in a bowl, cover, and sit that bowl inside another bowl full of very warm, or even hottish, water. Wrap with towels to hold the heat in as long as possible and go to bed.
Next morning, add the white flour, sugar and salt. Hopefully you're doing this in the breadmaker and can just start the dough cycle again now ... but stop it halfway through.
By hand, mix thoroughly, mix a bit more, really give a good going over with the mixing, and replace your warm water.
At about 12, give it a really good knead (or restart the dough cycle, again stopping it before it "Degases" the dough), and replace it's warm water.
At about 3pm, tip it out, shape it, put it in your tin, and leave it to rise. It needs warmth still, a bowl of water or over a wood stove works well. In summer the windowsill is usually good enough.
When it is almost doubled in bulk, at about 7:00, pop it in the oven. Don't forget it ... it'll take about half an hour.
Ideally you will make a loaf every day or second day to keep your starter "on the boil". However because I've been doing a lot of reading on how bad excessive carbohydrates are for you, I only make a loaf every week at most. What you can do is keep your starter in the fridge to slow it down, but bring it out the day before you need to use it, warm it up and feed it to get it going nicely.
Get to know your starter ... it communicates by smell and gases. If at any time your starter stops gassing and smelling the way it should, smells maybe like vinegar, separates, and stops rising bread, dump it and start again. Smelling bad and not making bread is not a good sign for a bread starter ...
Thanks for the recipe and information. I'm hand rearing baby finches at the moment which is time consuming, so when I have a bit of time I will try making sour dough. I'd have never thought about mixing the starter in different parts of the house. Brilliant!
We don't eat a lot of bread either but I do enjoy making it myself when I have time.
